Zoom Can Spy on You

Did you know I wrote a book about what can happen in the near future? The themes and topics in my novel are AI, corporate surveillance, and the climate crisis.

A lot of what I wrote in the book is coming true faster than I thought possible. This is #1 in a series of posts about how my future predictions turned out to be descriptions of the present.

Public-interest technologist and online security expert Bruce Schneier points out that Zoom recently updated its Terms of Service to reserve the right to train AI on user data without giving the option to opt out.

Yes, you read that right. You can’t opt out. Zoom can use your video calls to train its AI, if it wants to.

In the same terms of service, Zoom claims that it won’t do this without permission. But Schneier believes that the company’s promise is not reassuring, as Terms of Service can change at any time. The article argues that relying on for-profit corporations to protect our rights is not ideal and highlights the need for regulation.